As I was developing a level 4 character for a 5th edition D&D campaign I was playing with my friends, I settled on a multi-class character using the Druid and Wizard classes. When I went to choose a focus for the character, I saw the "yew wand" in the druid focus list and the "wand" in the wizard focus list. Could the yew wand then be used as a focus for both classes?
[RPG] Can Yew Wands be used as a focus for both druids and wizards
dnd-5edruidspellcasting-focuswizard
Related Solutions
Rangers Don't Get Foci
All classes that use a focus have a "Spellcasting Focus" subheading to their Spellcasting (or Warlock) feature:
- Wizard (arcane focus)
- Warlock (arcane focus)
- Sorcerer (arcane focus)
- Paladin (holy symbol)
- Druid (druidic focus)
- Cleric (holy symbol)
- Bard (musical instrument)
The wizards feature for instance reads:
SPELLCASTING FOCUS
You can use an arcane focus (found in chapter 5) as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells.
PHB 114
With the exception of the Ranger and Eldritch Knight, which specifically don't mention foci as part of the spell casting feature. Who have no such text.
It Is Intentional
Jeremy Crawford clarified in a tweet that the omission of focus for the ranger class is intentional. He was asked:
[D]o rangers use spellcasting foci, and/or do they need to buy component pouches at 2nd level?
And replied:
The ranger doesn't have a spellcasting focus. The trusty component pouch will do the job.
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/687417277231267844?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This makes sense as most rangers would likely have a bow. All bows, even the hand cross bow (even with Crossbow Expert), requires a free hand to load. So holding a focus would mess with the traditional ranger with bow. You keep a free hand for spells, pouch and loading firing arrows.
Mechanically
Using a bow, you have the weapon in one hand and the other on string. After you fire, your hand is free again. When you cast you pull out the components and put them back, or they are consumed, and your hand is free again. Works great with a bow. However, the arcane and druidic focus require object iterations, and you either have to drop it or spend the book keeping at the start and end of each turn.
Yes, a holy symbol could be worn and keep the hands free, likely why they did that for paladins, but they chose to go a different direction with the ranger.
Thematically
Ranger forage for food and materials, they are self reliant. It isn't hard to see them restocking their component pouch as they move through the wild area.
What about the Mistletoe?
it might be impossible to find mistletoe in the desert when a material component is needed.
The PHB says this about the component pouch:
Component Pouch. A component pouch is a small, watertight leather belt pouch that has compartments to hold all the material components and other special items you need to cast your spells, except for those components that have a specific cost (as indicated in a spell's description).
PHB 151
The pouch has all the components your spells require, and Material Components aren't consumed unless the spell says they are:
If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.
PHB 203
So, you have mistletoe once, and you have it forever -- unless your DM rules that lose it or it goes bad, etc. Then you have to buy more mistletoe or buy a new pouch. Such a thing, however, isn't in the rule.
Unearthed Arcana / Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
A recent released play test (UA), and page 57 of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (optional rule) provides the following to the Ranger class:
Spellcasting Focus
2nd-level ranger feature (enhances Spellcasting)
You can use a druidic focus as a spellcasting focus for your ranger spells. See chapter 5, “Equipment,” of the Player’s Handbook for a list of things that count as druidic focuses.
RAW?
Yes, it can be done... but no, not by a druid.
There is at least one method, Fabricate (PHB p239), that allows you to take raw material and turn it into a crafted object. Unfortunately, Druids can't actually do it - it's only on the Wizard spell list. Additionally, you need to be proficient with the appropriate tools to make something nice, but that's moot if the desire is to have a druid do it personally.
It's worth noting that "drawn whole out of a living tree" is ambiguous on the state of the tree after the staff is created it. If the intention is to have the work done by nobody but the druid, the statement "living tree" may well only require the tree to be alive when the process begins.
Other Methods?
There are no rules to support it, but it's entirely plausible that some sort of woodland creature could help - like a dryad or a treant. Either creature is strongly associated enough with trees that they might be able to alter one in such a way to remove a functional staff without harming the tree.
It's certainly a much better idea than druids having to pay a visit to wizards.
Best Answer
You might say something like: "Oh, well, a wizard can use a wand to cast spells, and a druid's yew wand is a wand, so the wizard can use that."
But a wizard's arcane focus isn't just any old wand. A wizard's arcane focus is an item which was specifically created to be an arcane focus. If the druid's yew wand wasn't specifically created to be an arcane focus, we should expect it not to work for a wizard.
Here's the full rules text:
So: a super-literal reading of the rules would tell us that a wizard probably can't use a "druid's yew wand" as a focus, because the "druid's yew wand" wasn't "designed to channel the power of arcane spells".
But, if a wizard gets a piece of yew wood and runs it through the process of creating a wizard wand, the result will be a "wand made of yew wood" and a druid can use that just fine.
This is still a bit ambiguous. Xirema notes that the rules for multiclassing tell you that you can only use a focus for spells of the appropriate class, which seems to imply that the designers might have intended for foci to be separate.
Another relevant consideration is that multiclassing tends to result in worse classes than single characters anyway. If we were making this ruling based on game balance, we should probably try to be lenient to the multiclass character, since they're going to have a harder time compared to single classes.
But the gripping hand is that we on stackexchange can still be overruled by your DM. If any rules are ever unclear or ambiguous (and these rules are), the way to resolve them is to ask your DM to make a ruling.
Go ask your DM to make a ruling. : )